Christmas Cheer Comes to Online Sales

Retailers in general have been feeling fairly depressed over the last several years, as consumers, who have been hit hard by the recession, have not been in a spending mood. But this is 2013, the year that supposedly the UK economy is finally turning the corner and many are predicting that consumers will once again start opening their wallets, especially with the Christmas season fully underway. While almost every retail segment can expect to see some cheery results, those that are fully engaged in online sales should be particularly pleased.

Taking off like Santa Claus

The major accounting firm Deloitte has crunched the numbers and has come to the conclusion that this year, sales across the board will increase over the Christmas holidays. What is interesting to note is that they predict that online sales will top €5 billion, while overall retail sales will come close to €40 billion. On one hand, it indicates that online sales are now a full 12.5% of all retail sales. But perhaps more significantly, Deloitte is expecting online sales this year to increase by over 20% when compared to last year, while high street sales will only increase by 3.5%. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what this trend indicates: there is a bright future in online sales.

Delivering like Santa Claus

Poor Santa Claus: I’m certainly referring to him a lot in this article! But the references are appropriate. Just like every child expects Santa Claus to deliver the Christmas presents during the night on the 24th of December, consumers expect online retail establishments to deliver their purchases with enough time for them to give them to the lucky recipient. While traditional delivery methods, such as the Royal Mail, which is gearing up for a busy season, or other express delivery services can probably provide packages in a reasonable timeframe, consumers are looking for another solution. The Deloitte survey indicates that many online buyers are looking for the ability to pick up their purchases at an e-commerce site’s traditional retail store. This adds a layer of complexity for those enterprises which are purely e-commerce, without a high street presence.

Making It Easy for Consumers

With the stratospheric increase in the use of mobile devices by shoppers, many retailers with e-commerce sites are making sure that there webpages are easily viewed by consumers on these devices, regardless of what they are using. They also want to ensure that traditional PCs are able to see their information in a simple and captivating way. This requires a certain finesse, which is typically best left to professionals such as http://www.absolute-design.co.uk/,who can make sure that any shopper can easily purchase whatever they need without a lot of complications.